3 The Son’s Redemption for the Father 9

3。1 The Son is a Shield between the Father and Death 9

3。2 Son’s Efforts in Helping the Father Stick to the Moral Bottom Line 9

Conclusion 12

Acknowledgements 13

References 14

1 Introduction

1。1 Cormac McCarthy and The Road源-于,优Z尔%论^文.网wwW.yOueRw.com 原文+QQ752018~766

Known as one of the most important and popular contemporary novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters, Cormac McCarthy was born in America in 1933。 McCarthy was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic High School in Knoxville, then he went to the University of Tennessee in 1951-52, majoring in liberal arts。 Along with Don Delillo, Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth, McCarthy is considered one of the four major writers in contemporary America by Harold Bloom, a famous literary critic。 Identified as the sole inheritor of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, McCarthy writes novels with concise language like Hemingway and themes similar to those of Faulkner’s Southern novels。 Coincidentally, the manuscript of McCarthy’s first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was edited by Albert Erskine, who continued to edit McCarthy’s novels for the following 20 years。 Albert Erskine was the very person who had been the editor of William Faulkner until he died in 1962。 论文网

As a prolific writer, McCarthy has written altogether ten novels by now which fall into different genres like Western, Southern Gothic and post-apocalyptic。 Published in 1965, The Orchard Keeper was followed by Outer Dark (1967), winning McCarthy good reviews as his first novel。 1973 saw the publication of Child of God which garnered mixed reviews。 Blood Meridian (1985) was placed third in the list of the greatest American novels of the previous quarter-century conducted by The New York Times Magazine in 2006。 As the first volume of the Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses (1992), became a New York Times bestseller shortly after its publication。 It not only won McCarthy the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, but also gave McCarthy the widespread recognition。 Later, the publication of The Crossing (1994) and Cities of the Plain (1998) completed the Border Trilogy。 2005 witnessed the publication of No Country for Old Men, which was adapted into a film by the Coen brothers, winning four Oscar Academy Awards in 2007。

Published in 2006, The Road is a post-apocalyptic novel which tells the story of a father and his son’s journey to the south in a world we can never imagine。 In order to survive another winter, they have no choice but to struggle their way to the southern part of the country, walking across a landscape destroyed by an unspecified cataclysm。 The Road was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006。 Selected to Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club, the novel was introduced to a wider range of readers, thus accelerated McCarthy’s popularity among the public。 The book was also adapted to a film in 2009。

1。2 Literature Review

Ever since its publication, The Road has attracted widespread attention both home and abroad。 Researches done by foreign scholars on The Road focus on different perspectives like the violence in the novel, whether there are moral concerns or not, the theme of the novel and ecological criticism of the novel, etc。